Port Ellen 1982 Wilson & Morgan [Road to #1000, Review #991]

Hi everyone,

If you’ve had a look at my Distillery Rankings page, you might have noticed something that wouldn’t surprise you; that Port Ellen and Brora hold the top spots… BY 5 WHOLE POINTS.

This probably wouldn’t surprise you because we all know that the whisky is old, expensive, hyped, etc.

But I’ve been thinking about this lately: why do I rate these whiskies so highly? Is it just because of my expectations? Would I rate the whisky the same if I tasted it blind?

I guess partially it also comes down to taste. Generally, I seem to prefer older whiskies with a huge amount of complexity that aren’t over-oaked. There really aren’t that many expressions of younger Brora or Port Ellen that we can get hold of, so it makes it hard to try (though Diageo are building the distilleries anew, so we may well do in a few years time). And these days, it is almost exclusively bottled at cask strength, which I also prefer. I like peaty whisky, again, old peated whisky being one of my favourites because as the smoke mellows you get more complexity coming out while still keeping spirit character and power.

Equally, I’m sure that there are very mediocre versions of both Port Ellen and Brora out there, I just haven’t tried many yet. I’m told that there are some disastrous PE’s from Sherry casks.

Anyway, enough rambling. Here’s another PE:

Port Ellen 1982 Wilson & Morgan 60%

Colour: Light Amber

Body: Full

Nose: Sweet, fruity, smoky, salty and oily. Salted fish, golden raisin, leather and cigar, sea air and salt, great clean lemon, sugared almonds, marzipan, dark chocolate and espresso, liquorice. Lovely nose.

Water: Quite different now, less smoke and cleaner. With more water you get more fruit- lemon, red apple and black pepper.

Taste: Incredible, flawless arrival, oils coating, spot on mouthfeel, then full power peat and minerals (almost Kilchoman-like!) then recedes into sweeter fruitiness, lemon. Really is amazing how powerful and peaty this is after 28 years.

Water: Very clean arrival, amazing development on a great balance of red apple fruit and oily smoke.

Finish: Long length. Awesome and oily, saltiness staying, lovely lemon citrus. Quite simple but, equally, it’s also quite stunning.

Bottled 2011 at 28yo from a Sherry cask. A pretty perfect beast of a whisky. Not massively complex but doesn't need to be. Another one for the 90 Club! And another incredible example of Port Ellen too. I could imagine Kilchoman tasting like this in 20 something years time actually.

90/100

Thanks for reading!

Updated Distillery Rankings

Scotch Review #829

Whisky Network Review #991

Network Average: 75.2

Best Score: 94

Worst Score: 12

0-49 Terrible

50-59 Bad

60-64 Just About OK

65-69 Ok to Good

70-74 Good

75-79 Very Good

80-84 Excellent

85-89 Superb

90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as the Global Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. You can find more on my scoring here. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and I am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and I am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

Why is this here?

Benrinnes 1979 Adelphi [Road to #1000, Review #980]

Hi everyone,

The first time you step into Jack Rose in Washington DC, you feel like you just might have died and gone to heaven.

The whisky collection is stupid good, prices reasonable and great atmosphere and food.

I had a long look through their menu and chose something I thought was underpriced, an old Benrinnes from Adelphi.

Always liked the Adelphi labels and bottles for whatever reason and although they can be quite expensive compared to other indies, the quality is usually very high.

Benrinnes 1979 Adelphi 64.6%

Colour: Light Gold

Body: Medium

Nose: Sharp wood and lemon, gristy malt and savoury notes of white sausage or smoked ham, a slight saltiness, green apple. Quite a natural style Benrinnes but with the meatiness I love.

Taste: Fizzy lemon and sharp wood, soft abv, malt building with sherbet, lemon meringue pie, creamy. The high alcohol isn't overwhelming at all, feels quite zingy and fresh.

Finish: Long. Lemon and green apple ending in chocolate and malt. Great finish.

Bottled a while back at 17yo. Interesting that while the abv is high, I didn’t feel like this needed water to open up, just time.

80/100

Thanks for reading!

Updated Distillery Rankings

Scotch Review #822

Whisky Network Review #980

Network Average: 75.1

Best Score: 94

Worst Score: 12

0-49 Terrible

50-59 Bad

60-64 Just About OK

65-69 Ok to Good

70-74 Good

75-79 Very Good

80-84 Excellent

85-89 Superb

90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as the Global Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. You can find more on my scoring here. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and I am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and I am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

Why is this here?

Benrinnes 2006 Adelphi Review

Hi everyone,

Arriving at the Whisky Exchange show this year, I had one whisky that I knew I needed to get my grubby paws on if I could: a dark as all hell Benrinnes that Adelphi had released and had sold out everywhere almost instantly online. A pre-2007 Benrinnes at that.

Luckily they had some to try as it proved fairly unusual…

Benrinnes 2006 Adelphi 55.5%

Colour: Dark Amber

Body: Full

Nose: Black cherry sauce, wet tweed, wet hay and grass but weird, clean but there's an off note. Doesn't really smell like whisky.

Taste: Oily, cherry and chocolate, spices with black pepper, wet tweed again and the that weird off note from the nose.

Finish: Long length. Wet tweed, weird wood and pepper.

On paper the greatest whisky ever, in practice I wouldn't even guess this was whisky blind. A real shame as I was very tempted to buy one.

However, this could be that its just going to be a very polarising whisky. Initial whiskybase rating look to be really high, so it could just be me…

52/100

Thanks for reading!

Updated Distillery Rankings

Scotch Review #792

Whisky Network Review #944

Network Average: 75.1

Best Score: 94

Worst Score: 12

0-49 Terrible

50-59 Bad

60-64 Just About OK

65-69 Ok to Good

70-74 Good

75-79 Very Good

80-84 Excellent

85-89 Superb

90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as a Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. You can find more on my scoring here. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and I am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and I am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

Why is this here?

Slane Irish Whiskey & 2003 Irish Single Malt Exclusive Malts Reviews

Hi everyone,

Two quick Irish whiskies today, one blended and the other a single cask, single malt.

Slane Blended Irish 40%

Colour: E150a

Body: Medium

Nose: Wine gums, slightly green, tropical, sour green apple, vanilla.

Taste: Soft and oily, quite a bit of malt before some rubbery tropical fruit comes in. Quite fat for a blend.

Finish: Medium length. Creamy, green Apple, some sour oak.

Not bad at all! Decent, cheaper Irish.

66/100

Ireland 2003 Exclusive Malts 54.2%

Colour: Light Amber

Body: Medium

Nose: Rubbery tropical fruit gums, slightly smoky oak, car sweets, some dust?, vanilla custard, charcoal. Dry nose.

Taste: Soft and dry, then creamy with oak and vanilla, red and black liquorice, car sweets, fruit gums, slightly rubbery into the finish.

Finish: Long length. Rubbery fruit and oak. Unbalanced and again quite dry.

13yo from refill Sherry cask. Was expecting more from this one, it just doesn’t quite come together the way it should.

73/100

Thanks for reading!

Irish Whiskey Reviews #26-#27

Whisky Network Reviews #934-#935

Network Average: 75.1

Best Score: 94

Worst Score: 12

0-49 Terrible

50-59 Bad

60-64 Just About OK

65-69 Ok to Good

70-74 Good

75-79 Very Good

80-84 Excellent

85-89 Superb

90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as a Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. You can find more on my scoring here. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and I am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and I am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

Why is this here?

Carsebridge 1974 Exclusive Malts Review

Hi everyone,

Old single grains can be stunning. But unlike some people, I prefer them at around the 30 year mark, rather than 40. What we can agree on is that these grains do tend to age well over longer periods of time, giving them more complexity as long as the oak doesn’t take over too much.

Do I know much about the Carsebridge distillery. No, I don’t. I just remember that they closed in that terrible endgame year; 1983.

Carsebridge 1974 Exclusive Malts 42.3%

Colour: Gold

Body: Light

Nose: Kind of ghostly, old oak and light spirit, some fruit, some corn actually (apparently they used corn back then!), some carpenter's workshop and airing out old rooms...

Taste: Soft and very light start then fruit and oak, dry, some orange and lemon, slightly grassy, a little flat and tired in the mid-palate.

Finish: Short length. A little tropical fruit but a little flat here too.

Bottled at 44yo. Cool to try but quite over the hill IMO. The nose is nice and interesting but the palate lets it down. Not bad stuff, of course, just expected more.

71/100

Thanks for reading!

Scotch Review #776

Whisky Network Review #921

Network Average: 75.1

Best Score: 94

Worst Score: 12

0-49 Terrible

50-59 Bad

60-64 Just About OK

65-69 Ok to Good

70-74 Good

75-79 Very Good

80-84 Excellent

85-89 Superb

90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as a Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. You can find more on my scoring here. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and I am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and I am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

Why is this here?

Dailuaine 2007 'Peated Finish' Hidden Spirits Review

Hi everyone,

Hidden Spirits isn’t going to be an independent bottler you’ll hear a lot about. Partly because they’re an Italian based company and not much of the stuff makes it beyond.

However, you will be hearing about it from me. Because I think they’re awesome. I tried the 2007 Ledaig of theirs before and it was epic, and this one is fairly epic and its not even from a well known distillery. So, I will attempt to track down more of their stuff but in the meantime… Oh and also, I love the labels.

Peated finishes (finishing a whisky in a barrel hat held peated whisky) aren’t something we see a whole lot of. Some IB Ardmore’s, a Penderyn, a Balvenie from a while back but these tend to be Islay casks, whereas this is Ben Nevis!

 

Dailuaine 2007 ‘Peated Finish’ Hidden Spirits 56.1%

Colour: Straw

Body: Medium/Full

Nose: Fresh, very delicate peat, malt, lovely fizzy lemon citrus, lemon sherbet, very soft and understated nose.

Taste: Snowflake delicate arrival, impeccable, building oily malt and lemon sherbet freshness, very very delicate peat but less and less as it develops. Great balance too.

Finish: Long length. More peat here with the lemon sherbet now backing. Great.

Finished for 13 months in an ex-heavily peated Ben Nevis barrel! Did I mention mouthfeel is spot on too? Fantastic whisky, really impressively finished. Expert. Well done Andrea.

83/100

Thanks for reading!

Updated Distillery Rankings

Scotch Review #676

Whisky Network Review #810

Network Average: 75.1

Best Score: 94

Worst Score: 12

0-49 Terrible

50-59 Bad

60-64 Just About OK

65-69 Ok to Good

70-74 Good

75-79 Very Good

80-84 Excellent

85-89 Superb

90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as a Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. You can find more on my scoring here. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and I am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and I am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

Why is this here?

Strathmill 1991 C&S Dram & 1990 Dimensions Reviews

Hi everyone,

I had met Andrea Caminneci when I was in Frankfurt late last year for another festival. Little did I know, he had his own independent bottler: C&S Drams. You aren’t likely to see them outside of Germany but I was recommended to try this one and I’m always interested by Strathmill. Definitely not a distillery you see often and quite and interesting and undervalued one too.

 

Strathmill 1991 C&S Dram 46.4%

Colour: Gold

Body: Medium

Nose: A very nice musky barrel, soft vanilla, dry oak, a little clean ethanol (the purifiers talking I think), crystallised honey, light florals and wax. A little Clynelish-like.

Taste: Soft, vanilla, juicy golden raisin and green apple, then nice earthy heathery malt and chocolate, dry oak and a little spice into the finish.

Finish: Long length. Very nice soft finish, heather, malt, milk chocolate.

26yo from a Bourbon barrel. Very fresh for 26 years but with complexity.

80/100

Hold on a minute… I’ve found an old review of a Strathmill that I’d totally forgotten! This was the one that tipped me off to Strathmill being a distillery making some great whisky.

Strathmill 1990 Dimensions Duncan Taylor 55%

Colour: Amber

Body: Full

Nose: Sweet complex honey- Honeycomb and honeysuckle, caramelised brown sugar, huge sherry sweetness. Strongly brewed tea, clove, menthol, melted butter, oily, spice and fruit- Red apple, raisin, date, fig, molasses, spiced rum, beeswax.

Taste: Well behaved for 55%. Sweet and smooth. Lots of honey, brown sugar, waxy, very waxy actually, lots of spice- Cinnamon, ginger and pepper, clove, butter, olive oil, orange and dark chocolate.

Finish: Medium/Long length. Waxy with spice and an ash hit.

Distilled 1990, bottled 2011. 21yo from a Sherry butt. Heavy and rich. Lovely with a drop of water too, more creamy and chocolatey. Great stuff, wish I’d bought a bottle at the time but I was fairly new to whisky then.

83/100

Distillery: Strathmill

Average Score: 78.8

Distillery Ranking: 14th/ 63 places

Up/Down: N/a

Thanks for reading!

Scotch Review #637-#638

Whisky Network Review #757-#758

Network Average: 74.9

Best Score: 94

Worst Score: 12

0-49 Terrible

50-59 Bad

60-64 Just About OK

65-69 Ok to Good

70-74 Good

75-79 Very Good

80-84 Excellent

85-89 Superb

90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as a Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. You can find more on my scoring here. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and I am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and I am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

Why is this here?

Mortlach 14 Sestante (Late 70's Import) Review

Hi everyone,

Hunt down old Mortlach. If you love whisky, hunt down old Mortlach.

Perhaps its me getting soft, but its been very rare that I give a score in the 90’s. So giving my first 94 and finding another 92 on the same day was a big treat. This was the last dram I tasted in Groningen at WFNN.

Sestante was a legendary Italian bottler operating in the 80’s and 90’s with a similar reputation to Samaroli. I was dithering between two old Mortlach’s and this one was recommended to me as one of the best Mortlach’s ever bottled. Sold! I shouted (only in my head mind you), before clasping the glass like a new born baby.

 

Mortlach 14 Sestante (Late 70's Import) 57%

Colour: Amber

Body: Full

Nose: Really old school. Dried blood comes off immediately. Meaty, Sherry, heavy style with beeswax, old brass, old worn leather, very dark chocolate and some amazing dried raspberry. So many complex oils and florals underneath.

Taste: Huge but soft, amazing distillate, amazing cask. Heavy sherry, meaty, so firm, in your face but oh so balanced and long, raisin, leather, oily for days.

Finish: Long length. So oily and classy and firm. More meaty here with the dried blood making a thundering return, dark chocolate, chocolate/cocoa powder.

An import for Italy, probably distilled in the 60’s. What a stunning, stunning whisky! With some water the nose opened up a little more with these lovely medicinal notes but the taste became a little too dry and oaky.

92/100

Distillery: Mortlach

Average Score: 80.3

Distillery Ranking: 8th/ 62 places

Up/Down: 14> 8 (Up 6)

Thanks for reading!

Scotch Review #608

Whisky Network Review #720

Network Average: 74.6

Best Score: 94

Worst Score: 12

0-49 Terrible

50-59 Bad

60-64 Just About OK

65-69 Ok to Good

70-74 Good

75-79 Very Good

80-84 Excellent

85-89 Superb

90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as a Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. You can find more on my scoring here. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and I am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and I am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

Why is this here?